| Criminal Macabre | |
| Character Name: | Cal McDonald |
| Alttxt: | The cover of Criminal Macabre featuring Cal McDonald flanked by a female plain-clothed police officer and a zombie. |
| Debut: | "Big Head" |
| Full Name: | Cal McDonald |
| Schedule: | Monthly |
| Limited: | y |
| Anthology: | Fly in My Eye and Dark Horse Presents |
| 1Shot: | y |
| Titles: | "Big Head" "Hairball" Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery Last Train To Deadsville: A Cal Mcdonald Mystery Love Me Tenderloin: A Cal McDonald Mystery Supernatural Freak Machine: A Cal McDonald Mystery Criminal Macabre: Two Red Eyes Criminal Macabre: Feat of Clay Criminal Macabre: My Demon Baby Criminal Macabre: Cell Block 666 |
| Horror: | y |
| Publisher: | Dark Horse Comics Image Comics |
| Startyr: | 1990 |
| Endyr: | Ongoing |
| Main Char Team: | Cal McDonald |
| Writers: | Steve Niles |
| Artists: | Jim Whiting Ben Templesmith Kelley Jones Kyle Hotz Nick Stakal |
| Creators: | Steve Niles |
| Tpb: | Criminal Macabre |
| Isbn: | 1-56971-935-7 |
| Tpb1: | Last Train to Deadsville |
| Isbn1: | 1-5930-7107-8 |
| Subcat: | Dark Horse Comics |
| Sort: | Criminal Macabre: Cal McDonald Mystery |
| Charsort: | Mcdonald, Cal |
| Addpubcat1: | IDW Publishing titles |
| Addcharcat1: | IDW characters |
Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery is a comic book series starring Cal McDonald, an antihero American comic book character created in 1990 by writer Steve Niles. The character's adventures have been published by Dark Horse Comics and later IDW Publishing.
Cal himself is akin to John Constantine, a DC Comics paranormal detective. He takes illicit drugs, and befriends a network of ghouls to assist him in his cases. Policemen do not really care to be involved with Cal.
Cal McDonald's first story, entitled "Big-Head", was released in 1990 as part of the anthology comic Fly in My Eye: Daughters of Fly In My Eye from Arcane Comix, with art by Jim Whiting. That story led directly to the four-part "Hairball", serialized in Dark Horse Presents #102-105 in 1996. Hairball was later printed as a one-shot comic.
Cal's subsequent appearances were in two 2002 novels, Savage Membrane, and Guns, Drugs and Monsters. In the latter, Cal relocated to Los Angeles, after following a living, severed head searching for its body.
Following the novels, Cal made his return to comic book form in the Dark Horse Comics mini-series, Criminal Macabre (2003) with Ben Templesmith as artist. The two would pair up again for a one-shot comic titled "Love Me Tenderloin" in 2004. Cal's adventures have continued in other mini-series such as "Last Train to Deadsville" and "Supernatural Freak Machine", both with artist Kelley Jones, where he re-encountered the severed head. Next, he starred in the mini-series "Two Red Eyes" with artist Kyle Hotz, where he does battle with the vampire Nosferatu. He also made a brief appearance in short story format in the Dark Horse Comics released title Drawing on your Nightmares, again with Ben Templesmith as artist. From there, he went on to do "My Demon Baby" and "Cell Block 666" with artist Nick Stakal. The series "Two Red Eyes" started a trend continuing in "My Demon Baby", where action film actor Thomas Jane would portray Cal on the issue's covers, stylized by artist Tim Bradstreet.
During the release of some of the comic book series there was another novel released in 2003 titled Dial M for Monster: A Cal McDonald Collection. This novel included several short stories featuring Cal.
Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories collects the entire catalogue of Cal McDonald short stories (not the comic stories) until this point. It was released on December 26 of 2007.
The series has been collected into a number of trade paperbacks:
| Title | Artist | ISBN | Collects | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Macabre | Ben Templesmith | Issues 1-5 | |||
| Last Train to Deadsville | Kelley Jones | Last Train To Deadsville 1-4 (Criminal Macabre 7-10) | |||
| Supernatural Freak Machine | Kelley Jones | Supernatural Freak Machine 1-5 (Criminal Macabre 11-15) | |||
| Two Red Eyes | Kyle Hotz | Two Red Eyes 1-4 (Criminal Macabre 17-20) | |||
| My Demon Baby | Nick Stakal | My Demon Baby 1-4 (Criminal Macabre 21-24) | |||
| Cell Block 666 | Nick Stakal | Cell Block 666 1-4 (Criminal Macabre 25-28) | |||
| Omnibus Vol. 1 | Ben Templesmith and Kelley Jones | Issues 1-5, Letter From B.S., Love Me Tenderloin, Last Train to Deadville 1-4, Supernatural Freak Machine 1-5 | |||
| Omnibus Vol. 2 | Casey Jones, Kyle Hotz and Nick Stakal | Two Red Eyes 1-4, My Demon Baby 1-4, Cell Block 666 1-4, Feat of Clay, The Creepy Tree, The Trouble With Brains, Hairball | |||
| Omnibus Vol. 3 | Scott Morse and Christopher Mitten | Final Night: The 30 Days Of Night Crossover 1-4, The Eyes Of Frankenstein 1-4, The Iron Spirit, Call Me Monster, When Freaks Collide, No Peace For Dead Men, Die! Die | My Darling, They Fight By Night |
| Title | Publisher | ISBN | Release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Savage Membrane | Idea & Design Works | April 2002 | ||
| Guns, Drugs & Monsters | Idea & Design Works | February 2005 | ||
| Dial M For Monster | Idea & Design Works | September 2003 | ||
| Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories | Dark Horse Books | December 2007 |
A Cal McDonald film is said to be on the way, however due to the nature of the character, Steve Niles does not want to compromise or "water down" Cal McDonald, making it tough to find a studio that will finance the film as is.[1]
Universal Pictures signed a deal to produce a Criminal Macabre movie with Kyle Ward scripting. It was set for release in 2010.[2]